Admin. Hearing (Sept. 27, 2018) (written testimony of Ctr. She was facing eviction after she had fallen into rental arrears for six months because she was under the mistaken understanding that the rental subsidy she recently secured from New York City covered her entire rent.69 In fact, she was responsible for the portion not covered by the subsidy. Brooklyn Defender Services 4.2. 60. The petition alleged that the skull fracture could only have been the result of child abuse and Ms. Greens failure to provide a sufficient explanation for the injury justified placing Sophia in foster care. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. By 2014, five family defender offices had contracts to represent parents.93 In some parts of New York City, family defender offices handle the vast majority of new cases filed. mediarequests@bds.org. 8 Brooklyn Defender Services jobs available in Brooklyn, NY on Indeed.com. Consider this: In 2003, there were over 28,000 children in foster care in New York City; at the end of 2019, there were approximately 7,800.99. We were very lucky to have [our lawyer] on the day that [my son] got in trouble. 9. See Family Defense, NDS: The Power of Pub. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. Our staff of 300 includes 180 attorneys as well as social workers, investigators, paralegals, re-entry specialists, jail liaisons, education, community organizers and policy specialists. See N.Y. County Law 722-c (allowing judges to authorize counsel assigned through the 18-b panel to engage social workers to assist in the representation of indigent clients); N.Y. Cty. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Based on the allegations alone, the agency believed that Ms. Green needed to complete both anger management and a parenting class to secure the return of her daughter. That knowledge commonly results in the offices achieving better, faster results for their clients than the child welfare agency is capable of, with considerably less disruption of the family, eliminating or significantly shortening the time children are forced to live apart from their families. & Fam. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. See In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d at 172. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. It is here, at the exquisite level of facts, that the defender offices make their greatest difference. The defender offices employ a wide range of professionals on each clients legal team, including social workers, parent advocates, interpreters, specialized attorneys, experts, and investigators. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children.24 The Center for Family Representation represents approximately 1,300 new clients each year in child welfare cases and between 2007 and 2018 has represented more than 7,000 parents with more than 15,000 children.25 Between 2007 and 2017, the Bronx Defenders represented more than 11,000 parents and, as of 2018, had a staff of more than 50 attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates. The non-profit organization, Brooklyn Defender Services, which provides legal defense to Brooklynites who can't afford private counsel, includes public defenders, lawyers in family practice . The study was the first of its kind ever conducted, although two previous studies were undertaken in Washington State that compared cases in which parents were represented by a new Parent Representation Program with the outcomes of cases in which parents were represented by traditional parent lawyers. One parent told the Commission she attended between twelve and fifteen conferences over a three-year period, and in every instance, she attended them alone.88 The second parent testified that she attended between twelve and eighteen such conferences over a longer period of time.89 She, too, was never accompanied by anyone to a conference.90 By way of comparison, the social work director at one of the family defender offices testified at the same hearing that her office has a team of nineteen parent advocates and social workers who attended nearly 1,000 conferences with parents in fiscal year 2018.91. Instead of striving to win on a case-by-case basis in court, the defender community insisted on securing a seat at the table to discuss poor practices with the officials in charge of child welfare in New York City. Fighting for you, your family & our community. In many cases when parents are well-represented at the administrative level, what happens in court is anti-climacticthe outcome of all that went before at the agency meetings. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. Although the agency does not permit lawyers to attend these conferences, it does allow parents to bring anyone else to be present. Brooklyn Defenders provides a wide range of services, including assisting people who are facing an investigation, providing legal representation to people who are brought to court and helping to clear the records of people from databases that impact employment. 7. 30+ days ago. 24 Public Defender jobs available in Bay Terrace, NY on Indeed.com. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. This is the third in a series of articles discussing the results of child welfare cases in which parents in New York City were represented by a new form of legal services provision: family defender offices whose staff include social workers, parent advocates, and lawyers. Admin. Along the path of the case, courts typically order that parents perform various services63 and ultimately order that children be allowed to remain with their families or be placed in another arrangement. Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. Brooklyn Defender Services 177 Livingston St., 7th Fl. But those studies included comparisons between counties (some of which had the program and some of which did not) in addition to comparisons within counties (pre- and post-implementation of the new model). Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. Admin. Ms. Greens attorneys used this knowledge to start planning their settlement and trial strategy.73. 382 (2019) [hereinafter Accidents Happen]. Because the new offices ethical duty is to strive to accomplish their clients objectives, and because almost all of their clients want to keep or regain custody of their children as quickly as possible, family defender offices are in the business of trying to achieve the identical objective everyone else in the child welfare field has: keeping children safely with their families and avoiding the needless placement of children into foster care.95, The interdisciplinary approach is recognized as a best practice.96 In 2019, a panel commissioned by Judge Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals in New York, recommended an expansion of interdisciplinary law offices from New York City throughout the state of New York due to their success.97, The impact created by high-level law offices devoted to representing parents in child welfare cases goes well beyond the statistics from the study. make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . We are the attorneys and advocates fighting injustice for individuals and families and protecting civil rights for all people. Over the many years of doing this work, the four offices that have contracts to represent parents in child welfare cases in New York City have developed and refined innovative approaches to secure the safe return of children from foster care. 18. In addition, major improvements have been made to parental representation systems in a number of other states, including Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Today, we are the primary provider of legal representation to parents facing the removal of their children to the foster system in Brooklyn Family Court. As Chris Gottlieb explained: Perhaps most important for staff, these organizations offer the emotional support and grounding needed to do extremely hard work in the trenches: a professional home to go back to after a difficult day in court; knowing your colleagues will listen and understand; being part of a team. Finally, in Part V, the Article clarifies the leading characteristics of successful parent representation in child welfare cases with a particular emphasis on proactive representation out of court. Change 539, 559 (2017). 88. for Child.s Servs., Children in Foster Care by Borough/CD of Foster Care Placement (Dec. 31, 2019), https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs/pdf/data-analysis/2020/incarefostercare.pdf. In fiscal year 2018, the office was assigned to represent more than 1,500 parents with approximately 3,500 children.26 The Neighborhood Defender Service has represented over 1,600 parents between 2014 and 2017.27, This arrangement, assigning a portion of new filings to a family defender law office and the remainder to panel lawyers, created an opportunity to study which kind of representation works best. Panel lawyers may be assigned to represent adult parties in a large range of other types of family court cases, including custody and visitation disputes, paternity proceedings, child support contempt proceedings, and cases involving domestic violence, in which the represented party might be the accused batterer or the alleged victim. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Emma S. Ketteringham & Caitlin Becker, at 2) [hereinafter Ketteringham & Becker written testimony]. 19, 1989). Unless otherwise noted, the discussion in this Article concerning the history and practice of parental representation in New York City is based on my own experience and knowledge from almost fifty years of working in this area as a litigator, clinical professor, scholar, policy advocate, and board member and advisor for government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Several days after Ms. Barrow was permitted to bring her baby home with her from the hospital, the agency removed the infant and placed her in foster care after a caseworker visited the apartment and found it to be excessively dirty and filled with cockroaches. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. 66. The defense team then went into action. To provide even a sense of the breadth of this work, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice litigates more than forty emergency hearings each month (or about 500 a year) to keep children home or have them returned from foster care sooner than the agency is prepared to allow. 2022 American Bar Association, all rights reserved. Our team works to find temporary custody arrangements, refute false allegations and help inform parents of their rights at early stages of an ACS investigation about their family. 28. The Brooklyn Officethe Brooklyn Family Defense Projectwas a project of the largest civil legal services organization in New York City, Legal Services for New York, now Legal Services NYC. As the field continues to improve, all parents should be given lawyers working in an interdisciplinary practice. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Brooklyn, NY. 13. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal Read more about this organization Issue Areas Include Family Immigrants or Refugees Legal Assistance Location After the social worker advocated for Mr. Sanchez with the medical team at the hospital, and after thoroughly going through the options available, the medical team better understood why Mr. Sanchez preferred to choose the less-invasive nonoperative treatment one more time before performing an invasive surgical procedure that does not carry with it any guarantee of ameliorating the hip condition. Office of Research & Analysis, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? 17. Serv. Social hold is a colloquial term used to describe the practice of a hospital separating new parents from their child immediately following birth while a report to the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment or an ACS investigation is pending. Brooklyn, NY, US. Instead, in New York City, the task was given to the Mayors Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator, which had deep knowledge of the criminal justice system but no experience with the child welfare system. These criminal justiceoriented officials gave the role of representing parents in child welfare cases to solo practitioners from an assigned panel of available lawyers.10 These lawyers, known colloquially as panel lawyers, were already being used to represent parties eligible for court-assigned counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings, among a number of other specialized areas of the law.11 These lawyers generally did not work in an interdisciplinary way. The offices social work team, along with the Brooklyn Defender Services immigration practitioners, have developed close relationships with community-based programs serving New Yorks immigrant communities and [are] able to connect clients to culturally competent service providers and access to services in their native language. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 9. If the study discussions in the previous section show anything, it is that being at the table when the agency fashions the case plan is a critical stage in the proceeding with profound long-term implications for all that follows. We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . General Inquiries. For over 50 years, SCO's Foster Care practice has been helping children and their families grow, heal and thrive. How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children: Family Separation in the Obama and Trump Eras, Wolves in Sheeps Clothing: How Religious Exemption Laws for Discriminatory Private Agencies Violate the Constitution and Harm LGBTQ+ Families, American Bar Association We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. 29. Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation. In contrast, the family defender office attorney who worked with the parent during the late stages of her pregnancy is well prepared to advocate on the parents behalf from day one. Under New York law, the definition of [n]eglected child includes a child less than eighteen years of age (i) whose physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care (A) in supplying the child with adequate . A goal of this Article is to lay the groundwork for leaders in child welfare throughout the United States to embrace the work new family defenders do.59 There are many ways to reform child welfare practice and policy in this country. See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. Easily apply. There is no question that the in-court advocacy engaged in by the family defender offices is of a much higher order than that practiced by the panel lawyers, as the qualitative study attests. Prior to joining the faculty at Brooklyn Law School, Professor Lorr was a Supervising Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice, providing free legal representation to parents at risk of losing their children to foster care. 41. When the agency interviewed her, Ms. Green told the investigators the same thing she told the doctors at the hospital. When these errors are not revealed, the official record supports the erroneous conclusion that a child was removed from a parents home for a substantial reason. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. In exchange for Ms. Anderson consenting to a finding that she neglected her child, the parties agreed to what is known in New York as an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.81 The parties agreed to a settlement order that ensured that Ms. Anderson would have custody of her daughter and be subject to supervision for nine months on the understanding that the finding of neglect would be vacated and the petition dismissed in nine months unless the agency could show that Ms. Anderson placed her daughter at risk in the interim. Instead of the family being reunited, the case might have resulted in a termination of parental rights. 2019, https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=208ionid=2&articleid=5378. 97. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 40102, 407. In sharing some of these accounts, the reader should pay particular attention to the frequency with which investigators from the child welfare agencies make mistakes, get facts wrong, fail to show up for critical meetings, or base recommendations on faulty information that is either flatly wrong or materially incomplete. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Every administrator of New York Citys child welfare system in this century has been committed to the principle of eliminating the unnecessary placement or retention of children in foster care. Brooklyn Defender Services is a public defense office whose mission is to provide outstanding representation and advocacy free of cost to people facing loss of freedom, family separation. Martin Guggenheim, New Study Shows Providing Parents with Multidisciplinary Legal Representation in Child Welfare Cases Furthers Everyones Interests, 20 Child.s Bureau Express no. Ms. Barrow disclosed to her defense team that she was pregnant. [or] ensure that clients receive necessary services and prepare appropriate service plans . Livingston St / Smith St. We serve the Brooklyn community by providing individual services to thousands of people each year, holding clinics and educational programs in our community office and online, and supporting fellow community organizations. Full-time. Then the team moved forward on expanding Ms. Barrows access to her older children. See also id. When the doctor requested more x-rays, the caseworker explained that she could not remain for the conference after the tests came back. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. Of the 135 (35%) cases filed in Family Court, 61 families remained together throughout the investigation and subsequent court filing, the children never removed from their homes. These conferences are expected to take place in front of the judges court attorney, rather than the judge, and are commonly used to provide a forum to resolve issues and move toward settlement. Our Approach. See N.Y. Fam. Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. See Mark E. Courtney & Jennifer L. Hook, Evaluation of the Impact of Enhanced Parental Legal Representation on the Timing of Permanency Outcomes for Children in Foster Care, 34 Child. Appreciating the likelihood that the agencys failure to hear this information in person would, at minimum, severely delay a resolution of the case, the defense teams social worker requested that the surgeon write a letter to the court explaining that, although he recommended that Eduardo have the surgery, the surgery was not medically necessary and Mr. Sanchezs preference to give nonsurgical treatment one more try was an appropriate exercise of parental discretion. For MAil . FAMILY DEFENSE. Our work with clients is focused on the intersection . Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation (2003), http://www.opd.wa.gov/documents/0047-2003_PRP_Evaluation.pdf (presenting results of an earlier study of pilot programs in two juvenile courts in different settings and locations). . See Id. See Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1; see also Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4. Even though Sophias injury was an accident, court calendars are so backed up that it takes many months from the date of a filing to get to a trial on the facts. Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. Quite often, the family defender offices in New York City achieve results for their clients that meaningfully advance childrens interests that could not have been achieved without spending considerable amounts of time out of court. Contacting a BDS Staff Member . Ct. The lack of out-of-court work that characterizes panel attorney legal representation in New York City goes well beyond leaving parents to fend for themselves in emotionally challenging meetings such as family team conferences and case planning conferences. . Among the most unsettling aspects of child protection intervention in New York City is the practice of the local child protection agency removing newborns from their mothers custody at the hospital. But the offices nonetheless prevented foster care entirely because of out-of-court advocacy. Natl Council of Juv. The previous studies limited their focus to quantitative outcomes achieved at court or to reporting the views of stakeholders focused on the differences between the two kinds of representation made available to parents in New York City.58 This Article starts where the prior two articles left off. Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. The Article proceeds in five parts. The social worker helped facilitate a more complete understanding between Mr. Sanchez and the hospitals medical team. P 646-971-2722. 718-564-6290. Jail Services Attorney/Advocate. Lucas A. Gerber et al., Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, 102 Child. This program, known as City FHEPS, is administered by New York Citys Human Resources Administration. Ct. Apply to Social Worker, Social Work Supervisor, Staff Attorney and more! These plans are best developed out of court in conjunction with the agency overseeing the case.64 No good lawyer can afford to ignore the administrative process, which commonly begins when a family comes to the attention of an investigating caseworker following a report of suspected maltreatment made to the child protection agency. In those cases, the parent would not have had anyone to attend the child safety conference with her at the hospital. Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. 92. from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law where she was a Graduate Fellow, participated in the Defenders clinic and interned with the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Defenders of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Family Defense Practice, the Brooklyn Defenders . 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. Prior to joining If/When/How, Noran began her legal career as a public defender in 2018 at Brooklyn Defender Services in the Family Defense practice representing parents and families who were impacted by the family regulation system. at 23 n.179. In testimony presented to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation, Bronx Defenders presented fiscal year 2018 data concerning the outcomes for 381 parents the office advised during their ACS investigations: Of those parents, 164 (43%) were never charged with abuse or neglect in the Family Court. E communityoffice@bds.org. 74. In 41 cases, the children were placed with one of their parents, and in 17 cases children were placed with relatives of their parents choosing. Find A Defender; Get Help; Donate; en What do you need help with? Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. He gratefully acknowledges the outstanding research assistance provided by Sean Eagan, New York University School of Law Class of 2019, and also thanks Luke Gerber, Chris Gottlieb, Sue Jacobs, Peter Pecora, and Tim Ross for their support and the careful attention they gave to this Article. The unit is staffed by trained social workers with deep experience negotiating the complexities of child welfare investigations during the time a woman is pregnant and immediately after she gives birth. Medical neglect is a common charge brought against parents in child welfare cases.82 Depending on the severity of the claimed neglect, the local child welfare agency may be seeking to place the child in foster care to protect the child from the parents failure to provide the child with adequate treatment or, less drastically, to secure court authorization to require that a child have a medical procedure it believes is necessary but that the parent refuses to allow. After three years, the agency successfully prosecuted a termination of parental rights case against her. He was just what we needed in a lawyer. The first article, Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, was published in 2019.1 It described the results of a multiyear study in New York City that compared the outcomes of child welfare cases in which parents were represented by multidisciplinary family defender offices with cases in which parents were represented by solo practitioners assigned from a rotating panel of lawyers.2 The outcomes were dramatically better in cases handled by these offices, as measured by the reduced amount of time children were kept from their parents custody as compared with parents whose lawyers were solo practitioners.3 The second article was a qualitative analysis that described the interviews conducted of a wide group of professionals and former clients who work closely with the two different kinds of legal representation models that were compared.4 That article revealed the opinions of a broad range of professionals working in the courts on what distinguishes the family defender offices practice from the work done by panel lawyers.5.
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